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The levy on Russian wheat exports will be increased from $86.4 per ton to $87 in the period from March 30 to April 5, the country’s Ministry of Agriculture said on Friday. According to the statement, export tax on barley and corn will amount to $75.6 and $58.3 per ton, respectively. Data shows the export duty rate for wheat and meslin (a mixture of wheat and rye) was calculated at an indicative price of $324.3 per ton, for barley at a price of $293.1, and for corn at $268.3 per ton. Last summer, the ministry launched the so-called floating tax on wheat, corn, and barley. The measure, which aimed at stabilizing domestic food prices, obliges sellers to register their export contracts on the Moscow Exchange. Based on that information, the Ministry of Agriculture determines the amount of the duty for a period of one week.

Nearly 100,000 Italian farms are on the verge of closure due to skyrocketing production costs brought about by the conflict in Ukraine, major farming association Coldiretti said in a report this week. According to the group, growing production costs far exceed what is being paid to farmers and breeders for their products, from milk to fruit, meat and vegetables. More than one farm in 10 (11%) is therefore on the verge of closure, while about one-third of the nation’s total (30%) are working in conditions of negative profits, Coldiretti explains, citing data from Italian agricultural research organization Crea. The group notes that prices have been growing on nearly every raw material used by agro-producers: from energy to diesel, fertilizers, fodder for animals and seeds. Another problem is the gap between the final price of products and what the farmers are getting after transportation and processing. According to Coldiretti, for every euro spent by consumers on food products, on...

Japanese PM Fumio Kishida has claimed the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons is “increasingly real.” He delivered his remarks on Saturday, in Hiroshima. during a visit from American delegation. China warns of ‘unimaginable consequences’ if nuclear power is forced into a corner Read more China warns of ‘unimaginable consequences’ if nuclear power is forced into a corner The war in Ukraine shows the difficulties of creating a world without nuclear weapons, Kishida said, arguing that, what he called, Russia’s “aggression” has threatened the international order and peace. He was joined at the Hiroshima peace memorial and museum by the US envoy to Japan Rahm Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff perhaps best known for his maxim “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Kishida himself spent some of his childhood in New York. Washington and its allies have made much of the fact that Vladimir Putin, last month, ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to be placed on “high alert.” However, M...

Though relations between Russia and the West are at their worst since the Cold War, the unipolar world dominated by the US and its allies is now over, former Russian president and current head of the National Security Council Dmitry Medvedev told RT and RIA Novosti in an interview on Thursday. He added that Russians are uniting in the face of Western sanctions and threats, and will forever remember the current campaign of hate against everything Russian. Russia is European but also transcends Europe Q: Twelve years ago you gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal, a very reputable newspaper, and you said that you considered Russia a European country. Do you still feel that way? A: Well, geographically we're the same country. Without a doubt, Russia has been and will continue to be a European country – just as it is an Asian country. In terms of its geography and history, Russia is a European country. Also, we're European in terms of our cultural identity, because a good...

US President Joe Biden has called for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be deposed. He made a direct appeal to the Russian people during a speech in Warsaw, where he had met for talks with high-ranking Ukrainian officials on Saturday.For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden declared at the end of an emotionally overwrought speech in the Polish capital’s Royal Castle. While he has previously denounced Putin as a “war criminal” and a “dictator,” and lobbed at him all manner of other geopolitical insults, this was his first recorded demand that the president be removed from office.Biden also spoke directly to “the Russian people,” insisting that despite weeks of punishing sanctions and forcing hundreds of American and European-based companies to pull out of the country, “you, the Russian people, are not our enemy.” He then attempted to liken Ukrainians fighting “Russian aggression” to the Soviet Union defending itself from Nazi Germany in World War II.Not one to miss an...

Western nations should prepare their peoples for a long-term drop in living standards if their standoff with Russia continues, the Britain’s former Assistant Chief of Defence Staff, Jonathan Shaw, has said. “We in the West have the wrong mentality” about the conflict in Ukraine, he said. Once one of the British Army’s most senior officers, Shaw was speaking on talk radio station LBC on Saturday. “We are obsessed with humanitarian concerns and individual suffering, and that makes good TV, but the reality is this is far more serious than that,” the Major-General, whose 30-year career spanned the Falklands and Kosovo to commanding the UK forces in Iraq in 2006, warned. The West has imposed draconian sanctions on Russia after it attacked Ukraine a month ago. This includes the US and Canada giving up their need for supplies of Russian hydrocarbon fuels, and the EU and UK announcing plans to join them in the near future. The restrictions and retaliatory steps by Moscow have already seen ...

Joe Biden’s repeated verbal attacks on Vladimir Putin only contribute to the deterioration of the ties between their two nations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday. “A head of state must remain civil. And, of course, every time, these personal insults narrow the window of opportunity for our bilateral relationship under the current [US] administration,” Peskov said, suggesting Biden’s own war record gave him no right to criticize anyone. After all, this is the man who, back then, speaking on television, demanded his own country bomb Yugoslavia … He demanded they kill people. US President Joe Biden had hurled a new insult at his Russian counterpart earlier in the day, after meeting Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw. Biden had been in the Polish capital for talks with Kiev officials. Asked by reporters what he thought of Putin, he bluntly replied, “He’s a butcher.” US-Russia ties ‘on the brink’ – Moscow Read more US-Russia ties ‘on the brink’ – Moscow Over the past few day...

India’s refusal to cast aside its longstanding friendship with Russia over the war in Ukraine is “unsatisfactory,” US diplomat Mira Rapp-Hooper told an online conference hosted by the School of Advanced International Studies, while admitting it was also “unsurprising.” Rapp-Hooper, director for the Indo-Pacific region on the White House’s National Security Council, was specifically referring to India’s recent votes at the United Nations, where it has declined to come out against Russian actions in Ukraine and remained silent in the Security Council votes on the matter. “I think we would certainly all acknowledge and agree that when it comes to votes at the UN, India’s position on the current crisis has been unsatisfactory, to say the least. But it’s also been totally unsurprising,” she said on Friday. While explaining that India had strengthened its ties with Russia for its own safety as its relationship with China deteriorated, the American diplomat suggested the country was now t...

US-based mineral exploration company KoBold Metals said on Thursday it is ready to start drilling for nickel and other raw materials used in electric vehicles, amid skyrocketing prices brought about by Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia. The company secured a 51% stake in the Disko-Nuussuaq project on Greenland’s west coast last year, operated by UK-based Bluejay Mining. In their joint venture, the mining firms plan to drill a total of 3,000 meters in 2022 at depths of between 150 to 400 meters to get to where the metals are located. “The objective is to target massive nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group metals,” Bluejay CEO Bo Stensgaard told Reuters. The ambitious project comes as prices for metals, especially nickel, used in electric vehicle batteries more than doubled earlier in March amid Western sanctions imposed on Russia following its military operation in Ukraine. Russia supplies around 10% of the world’s nickel needs, as well as 4% of cobalt. It is also the world’s ...

“Hungary is on Hungary’s side,” its prime minister, Viktor Orban, said in a statement on Saturday, in response to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s calls for Budapest to quit sitting on the fence in the conflict between Kiev and Moscow. Orban said that, while his country could not “be indifferent” to the “Russo-Ukrainian war going on in our neighborhood,” Hungary would look after its own interests first, and maintain a “Hungarian point of view.” He went on to stress that Budapest “wanted to stay out of this war,” but that this did not preclude it from helping “those in need.” The statement came in response to Zelensky having urged Orban to choose a side in the conflict. Speaking to EU leaders via video link on Friday, the Ukrainian president thanked the Baltic states, Poland, France, and Germany for their support, but noted that Hungary was still declining to take a stand. He called on Budapest to “decide for yourself who you are with.” Addressing Orban directly, Zelensky ask...

Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop has reared its ugly head again, as it reportedly contains emails that appear to back up Russian claims that the US president’s son was involved in financing military research into dangerous pathogens at biolabs in Ukraine. Biden helped arrange millions of dollars in financing for Metabiota, a Pentagon contractor that specialized in researching pandemic-causing pathogens that could be used as bioweapons, the UK’s Daily Mail outlined on Friday, citing newly obtained emails and letters from the computer. The president’s son and his partners in a firm called Rosemont Seneca also invested $500,000 in the contractor. At least one of the documents suggested that Metabiota’s interest in Ukraine went beyond research and money-making. An executive with the contractor, Mary Guttieri, explained in an April 2014 memo to Hunter Biden of “how we can potentially leverage our team, networks and concepts to assert Ukraine’s cultural and economic independence from Russi...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday gave the country’s central bank and government one week to come up with a way to switch payments for Russian gas exports to the national currency, the ruble. The prospect raised many eyebrows among Russia’s gas buyers, who started to speculate how exactly this could be done and whether Russia would go through with the measure. Here are some ideas. Why the switch to rubles? The US and its allies have imposed unprecedented sanctions against Russia, targeting the country’s financial system. President Putin explained that illegitimate decisions by a number of Western nations to freeze Russia’s assets destroyed all confidence in their currencies. Russia’s energy exports have not fallen victim to Western restrictions yet, but nearly all gas purchase contracts are denominated in euros or US dollars, which makes them a potential target. But if Russia is paid in rubles, it could evade sanctions. Which countries does this affect? The proposed move a...

Russia’s armed forces have completed the “first stage” of their mission in Ukraine, according to a top military commander, who claimed Kiev’s combat potential has been severely diminished following over a month of fighting. Speaking during a Friday press briefing, Colonel General Sergey Rudskoy stated that Moscow had reached its objectives for the first leg of its military assault, adding that this would allow it to give its full attention to the Donbass region. “In general, the main tasks of the first stage of the operation have been completed,” said Rudskoy, who serves as chief of the Russian military’s Main Operational Directorate. “The combat potential of the armed forces of Ukraine has been significantly reduced, which allows… us to focus our efforts on achieving the main goal – the liberation of Donbass.” The official noted that Ukrainian forces have prepared a “well-fortified defense zone” in the breakaway region over a period of eight years. He said Russian troops are isola...